Looking for suggestions for audio/media in new home construction (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Last thematic comment:

It looks like you're doing 5.1 pre-wire for a TV over a fireplace.

Don't put a TV over the fireplace. Especially don't if this is supposed to be the prime TV and Movie watching space! I'd eliminate the fireplace from the build altogether and put the money saved into other upgrades.

 

[iainb]

Explicitly confirm they are running ethernet from the FIOS ONT box down to your wiring panel along with the coax. I'm FIOS in a new build. They only ran the coax from the ONT box in the garage to the homerun in the basement. They use a FIOS modem there to take coax in send out TV (coax) and Internet (ethernet). You specifically want ethernet cable from the ONT box down to your main panel. With that, you can choose to not use FIOS modem completely.

I'll see what I can find out. Our current home is a condo and FiOS does multi-family buildings completely different from single family. And while my parents have FiOS as well in their SF, the house is 60 years old with no structured wiring so even that will be different then how our new one is done.

We're getting a little off-topic with this other stuff but I do appreciate your feedback. This isn't actually our first time building a house, just our first time being able to afford doing the AV stuff.

Also on home wiring: wire for ceiling fans in every major room. That way you've got the three-way switch and the ceiling box already there for if and when you want overhead lighting.

Make sure there's an outlet in little spaces like a garage mudroom. We almost missed that, but having an outlet in such spaces is so helpful.

For your exterior lights (front house light and garage light, say), skip the flip switch and put in in-wall timers that do location-based dusk-dawn auto-DST.
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-PL...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=46YEE65ZHPQDHZHV4CS2

It appears you've got the plumbing rough-in for your basement rec space. That's good.

I have copies of all the architectural blueprints of the house, including all the standard electrical etc.

I've gone through it all and we're good for all of that. Our selections for the electrical are all on separate set of floorplans then what I have posted here but yes, we already have 6 ceiling fan pre-wires located in the house- every bedroom (4), family room, and the library/study. We also have some additional fixtures being added in a few places.

The basement bathroom rough-in is included with the house, we added a rough-in for a wetbar so it'll be there if we want it.

You've got a living space over the garage. If it's not too late, talk with the builder about going above and beyond on the insulation between second floor and the garage. I've never known anyone happy with standard construction quality when you've got a garage under living space, especially master-bedroom space. It's always colder and hotter. We have that in our house, under guest bedrooms. I very much wish I'd had the presence of mind to have them do extra insulation above the garage.

We didn't want to spend up for a true dual-zone AC system, but I wanted better control than I had in my previous two story. So I split the difference and got a two-zone dampered system. If you're not true dual-zone, look into a two-zone damper, with thermostats in your downstairs living space and a thermostat in your master bedroom. I've been happy with that choice.

The only room that is over the garage is our master bathroom. The rest are outside of the garage footprint.

Our builder has the HVAC system leak-tested and balanced multiple times during construction and they claim 67 or lower HERS ratings for their single family homes. Their philosophy is that a house of this size shouldn't need dual-zones if the HVAC is designed properly. They'll sell me a real dual-zone system if I want it but they claim I don't need it. We'll see.

Last thematic comment:

It looks like you're doing 5.1 pre-wire for a TV over a fireplace.

Don't put a TV over the fireplace. Especially don't if this is supposed to be the prime TV and Movie watching space! I'd eliminate the fireplace from the build altogether and put the money saved into other upgrades.

We aren't doing the fireplace, it was just on the drawing that the low-voltage guy had.

 

[iainb]

I just came across these which seem pretty awesome and look a lot cleaner then the normal wall mounts. $139 seems pricey but a regular wall mount is about $40 each. So basically $100 more to have something that looks way cleaner and integrated plus because they wire into an existing electrical outlet with romex they comply with NA residential code. Not bad.

http://www.thenos.us/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=50

 

[iainb]

To follow-up on this and close it out- Sonos released their AirPlay2 update last week so we picked up a Sonos One to try it about and it works perfectly for what we need so we're just going to go full Sonos w/ AirPlay2 for the individual rooms/zones. So we are scrapping all of the speaker pre-wires except for the 5.1 and the pair of outdoor speakers. When we buy a receiver for the 5.1 I'll just make sure it has a dedicated zone2 with Airplay2 support for the outdoor speakers.

Thanks for all the feedback!